TURNING DOWN THE THERMOSTAT OUR EFFORTS TO SLOW CLIMATE CHANGE INCLUDE SUPPORT FOR A PAIR OF INNOVATIVE GROUPS Climate change is a reality—from sea level rise to ocean acidification, melting glaciers to extreme and unusual weather patterns and storms. The impacts on natural and human communities around the world are clearer each day, and the need for action couldn’t be more urgent. Through grants and campaigns, we support numerous groups working on the issue, but we wanted to highlight two particularly innovative organizations.
PROTECT OUR WINTERS At the grassroots, Protect Our Winters (POW) works with skiers, snowboarders and other winter sports ambassadors to voice primal questions and worries so real to many of us who love mountains and snow: What will winter look like in a world altered by climate change? Will our kids and grandkids have snowy slopes to ski on? How will less snow impact wildlife and people that rely on winter wildlands for their ecological and economic livelihoods? While raising the volume on these issues, POW simultaneously battles the causes of climate change through campaigns like “Coal Kills Snow,” which pushes hard against coal mining, transport and energy generation.
BUSINESS FOR INNOVATIVE CLIMATE AND ENERGY POLICY At the grass-tops, Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy (BICEP) is an advocacy coalition of businesses committed to working with policy makers to pass meaningful energy and climate legislation that will enable a rapid transition to a low-carbon, 21st century economy and create new jobs and stimulate economic growth while stabilizing our planet’s fragile climate. Its Climate Declaration, which Patagonia signed in May 2013, has now been endorsed by more than a thousand companies worldwide. President Obama took notice and mentioned the effort in his speech on climate last summer. Climate change is perhaps the greatest issue facing our global community today, and we’re way behind in our efforts to stem the rising tide of carbon in our atmosphere. We draw some hope from the work of these two organizations, and hope you’ll visit their websites to learn more. protectourwinters.org and ceres.org/bicep
What will winter look like in a world altered by climate change? Les Deux Alpes, France. ERIC BERGERI
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